TLDR: Can a Bluefield 1 be configured to run without being attached to a host computer?
Hey all, I'm setting up a home cluster and got my hands on some hardware I probably shouldn't have. Somebody sold me a Bluefield 1 and I've got a few 10/40 ConnectX cards lying around from previous bad decisions. Problem is, PCIe is at a premium, and networking is king (he says, having largely ignored the compatibility of the ports, all this and I'll still likely cap out at 10gb across most of the cluster).
I'm wondering, can I configure the Bluefield to act as a standalone node, more like a PCIe host rather than a device? I've got peripherals it would be fun to try to connect it to.
Alternatively, if I somehow got another one, I've got two SBCs with x8 PCIe Gen 4, but it seems like a waste to put them in there if I could use the ConnectX cards (would let me configure them as a P2P subnet, I think) and have the Bluefield either as a standalone node or maybe attached to something with a less optimal PCIe layout for networking (one has x2 Gen 3, another modern system x4 Gen 2. Why?)
I've tried Google, but I'm in over my head. I see the unit has a power connector (that I have no idea how I'm going to actually power yet) and a Mini USB port that I assume is OOB management. It sure *looks* like it should be able to stand on its own, but I don't know the right words to search for and I'm having trouble even finding a spec sheet (which I would valiantly pretend like I could read).
So, two questions:
* Can I configure it to act as a PCIe host for something like a GPU (or FPGA, because I'm already playing with fire)
* Does anyone understand its capabilities and can explain them in lay English, or point to a "For Dummies" type resource? I have tried to find it on Google, but I failed.
Maybe a third question, if it can be standalone, could it function in place of a router/switch? (I'm pretty sure that's the whole reason it was built, TBH.) That would be incredibly cool.
Hey all, I'm setting up a home cluster and got my hands on some hardware I probably shouldn't have. Somebody sold me a Bluefield 1 and I've got a few 10/40 ConnectX cards lying around from previous bad decisions. Problem is, PCIe is at a premium, and networking is king (he says, having largely ignored the compatibility of the ports, all this and I'll still likely cap out at 10gb across most of the cluster).
I'm wondering, can I configure the Bluefield to act as a standalone node, more like a PCIe host rather than a device? I've got peripherals it would be fun to try to connect it to.
Alternatively, if I somehow got another one, I've got two SBCs with x8 PCIe Gen 4, but it seems like a waste to put them in there if I could use the ConnectX cards (would let me configure them as a P2P subnet, I think) and have the Bluefield either as a standalone node or maybe attached to something with a less optimal PCIe layout for networking (one has x2 Gen 3, another modern system x4 Gen 2. Why?)
I've tried Google, but I'm in over my head. I see the unit has a power connector (that I have no idea how I'm going to actually power yet) and a Mini USB port that I assume is OOB management. It sure *looks* like it should be able to stand on its own, but I don't know the right words to search for and I'm having trouble even finding a spec sheet (which I would valiantly pretend like I could read).
So, two questions:
* Can I configure it to act as a PCIe host for something like a GPU (or FPGA, because I'm already playing with fire)
* Does anyone understand its capabilities and can explain them in lay English, or point to a "For Dummies" type resource? I have tried to find it on Google, but I failed.
Maybe a third question, if it can be standalone, could it function in place of a router/switch? (I'm pretty sure that's the whole reason it was built, TBH.) That would be incredibly cool.
